Drugs aren’t the only solution
This is a hard pill to swallow for “pill mill” doctors and pharmaceutical companies that provide their supply, but alternative workers’ compensation approaches to managing chronic pain are increasingly...

By John Stahl, Esq.
A May 2012 report from the National Council on Compensation Insurance Holdings, Inc. , (NCCI) addressed the conclusions of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) that “the overuse of opioid...

By Robert G. Rassp, Esq.
I lost a friend recently. He had an “accidental” overdose of fentanyl. He was 53 years old. He graduated with honors from Harvard Medical School and became a skilled plastic surgeon with a fellowship in hand surgery...

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration have arrested employees and former employees of Boeing's Ridley Park, Pennsylvania plant and one non-employee in a coordinated, long-term, undercover effort aimed...

By Stuart Colburn, Esq.
This is the third part of a three-part series on prescription drug abuse in America. Part One explained “the problem”. Part Two identified the stakeholders involved with this epidemic. Part Three below discusses...

By Stuart Colburn, Esq.
This is the second part of a three-part series on prescription drug abuse in America. Part One explained “the problem ”. Part Two below identifies the “P” stakeholders involved with this epidemic:
...

By Robert G. Rassp, Esq.
The following chart lists the brand or common and chemical names of drugs we regularly see in our cases embedded in medical-legal reports, treating physician reports and subpoenaed medical records. Some physicians randomly use...

Washington State Combines Preferred Drug List and Volume Buying
By John Stahl, Esq.
Like the weather, increasingly high costs of the deluge of prescription drugs prompt complaints by everyone who provides workers’ compensation coverage...

By Jeffrey C. Napolitano, Juge Napolitano Guilbeau Ruli & Frieman, a plc, Metairie LA
Wholesale pharmacies who contract with physicians to provide pharmaceuticals to them on a consignment basis for dispensing to their workers compensation patients...

By John Stahl, Esq.
The legal implications of decriminalizing limited marijuana-related activity in some states extend beyond basic challenges such as amending zoning laws to accommodate medical marijuana dispensaries. The associated increasingly large...

By John Stahl, Esq.
The latest report on Florida from the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) is a trifecta in the sense that it addresses topics that arguably are the current “top three” workers’ compensation drug...

By John Stahl, Esq.
Enhancing the regulation of physician-dispensed drugs is one tactic that workers’ compensation jurisdictions use in the war against the opioid epidemic that is costing workers’ compensation systems millions of dollars...

By John Stahl, Esq.
The near certainty that provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a.k.a. Obamacare, will contribute to the increasing tendency to prescribe workers’ compensation claimants opioids prompted Risk & Insurance to conduct...

The Missouri court of appeals affirmed a decision to dilute a drug cocktail, but the decision came with a twist with a warning about attorney’s fees.
In Noel v ABB Combustion Engineering , ED 98446 (Mo. App. 11-13-2012) the injured worker obtained...

Proof that “a higher use of opioids [among patients with occupational diseases] may … lead to addiction, increased disability or work loss, and even death” prompted the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute to conduct a study...

Amid a glaring public spotlight, a growing body of evidence about the repercussions of using major narcotics to treat chronic pain, and improved medical management, cost containment and pharmaceutical controls, the use of Schedule II opioid painkillers...

The most disturbing conclusion that the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) presented in a webinar entitled “Use of Narcotics and Compliance with Guidelines” was that many workers’ compensation claimants (claimants...

A new California Workers’ Compensation Institute (CWCI) study finds that widespread use of narcotic painkillers to treat work-related injuries – including relatively minor injuries where their use is not supported by medical evidence -- has...

It is axiomatic in workers’ compensation law that a subsequent injury, whether an aggravation of the original injury or a new and distinct injury, is compensable if it is the direct and natural result of a compensable primary injury [see Larson’s...

The employer’s failure to provide medical treatment for several months did not waive its right to designate a medical provider, according to the Commission, which rejected an argument that 287.140 allowed prospective waiver to designate medical...